


Book of Ruth

by theremin



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23171260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theremin/pseuds/theremin
Summary: Hooli employee Richard Hendricks has written an algorithm with a lot of potential, and Jared Dunn becomes his direct supervisor.
Relationships: Gavin Belson/Jared Dunn, Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41





	Book of Ruth

**Author's Note:**

> There are a good few songs mentioned in this fic, I've linked to YouTube vids with a little [x] if you want some extra ambiance while reading!

**i. the day things changed**

**03:45 AM** When Richard Hendricks was bitching about his life to his visibly uninterested roommates, he compared himself to Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. The same day, over and over, no change, no progress. When Richard’s anxiety pills didn’t do their one damn job and he was wide eyed and awake at night, stressing out over how shit his life was – few friends, no romantic prospects, still the same low level coding job at Hooli, still sleeping in a bunk bed in a pompous stoner’s house – he realized his life wasn’t even Groundhog Day level. At least Bill Murray was funny and cool and got to hang out with prime era Andie MacDowell and never age. If Richard could be compared to a movie character, he was probably more like… the mosquito from Jurassic Park. Inert. Trapped in amber. Degrading DNA. Surrounded by motherfuckers like Dennis Nedry, and that Chinese scientist guy, and the little tomboy who knew Linux. Fuck. He reached for the bottle of melatonin gummies he kept lodged between the mattress and the frame, and popped a couple in his mouth, started chewing. Something had to change, he thought, as the gentle effect of the melatonin started tugging on his eyelids. It just had to. Soon sleep came, grey and heavy like an overcast day, but welcome.

 **07:30 AM** Jared Dunn’s alarm clock woke him up by softly illuminating his bedroom and playing birdsong. He stretched and smiled. Gosh, he loved his bed, he loved his condo. It was the first place he’d really been able to call home and he’d decorated and furnished it to his exact tastes. He liked all the colors in it. He’d made the curtains himself. Nothing was awkwardly placed or sized for his height. Every room had a souvenir of a happy memory, and a working pen. He got up, went to the bathroom, then into his living room, unrolled his yoga mat and used his phone to cast a Yoga With Adriene video to his TV, following her instructions. When it was over he put his palms together and set an intention for the day. _Today I will not make Gavin Belson angry or annoyed._ He nodded to himself and said “Namaste” before getting ready for work and leaving his beloved condo for his far less beloved, but lucrative place of work.

 **09.45 AM** Richard wasn’t entirely sure how to go about changing his life, which had seemed vital when he was sweating and freaking out in his bed, but pretty unappealing in the light of day. Maybe talking to new people could be a good start, so when some brogrammers came over to bust his balls he decided to not be his usual guarded self, he wasn’t that bullied kid anymore, he could hang, and instead tried having a real conversation with them, told them about Pied Piper and to check out his github, and when they laughed in his face no longer able to keep up the pretense of interest his face formed a very stiff smile and he walked back to his station, thinking there were probably smarter ways of stepping outside the comfort zone than talking to obvious douchebags. Maybe he should like start working out or something instead? He unpeeled an energy bar and started clicking around on the Hooli employee benefits page, looking at all the available activities he didn’t want to do.

 **11:30 AM** Jared caught up with Gavin Belson. Earlier that same day he’d seen a bunch of programmers gathered around a laptop, and when he’d leaned in to see what they were all looking at he’d seen something he believed would make Gavin very happy. The modest github project with the unappealing name “Pied Piper” had a compression feature unlike anything he’d seen. The programmers were flabbergastedly throwing FLACs and OGGs at it and it spat out tiny compressed files under a MB in size that were completely playable with no discernible audio loss. He’d run a bunch of tests in his office and done some research on the author of the software, one Richard Hendricks, Hooli programmer of two years, infrastructure division. In his employee photo he had a shy smile, large blue eyes, and riotous curly hair that hung in ringlets over one eye. Prepared with all this info, he’d gone looking for Gavin, and had managed to catch him on his way into his office.

“Do you have a couple of minutes, Gavin?”

“Is it important?”

“It could be.”

Gavin nodded and Jared followed him into his office, closed the door behind them. Gavin sat down behind his desk and Jared handed him some printouts, showed him the demo on his pad, gave him some brief background info on Richard Hendricks.

“Does he know what he has?” Gavin frowned.

“I don’t think so,” Jared said. “these programmers, they all think user-facing. Who is a music search app even for? But if we take this tech, make it business-facing- I can think of dozens of companies who would pay premium for something like this, we might even make a product to rival AWS.”

“Fucking Bezos,” Gavin muttered.

“I think we can get it very cheap,” Jared said. “I thought we might offer him 200k and a promotion to consult on or lead further projects?”

“Maybe we can get it for free,” Gavin said.

“For… for free?”

“You said he’s a Hooli employee.”

“Yes, for two years.”

“Maybe he worked on this on site. In which case, we already own the copyright, and we don’t have to give him shit.”

Jared frowned. “Well, I don’t know about that.”

“Find out.”

“Um. What?”

“Work it the fuck out, Vassar,” Gavin snapped. So much for that intention. “give him some bullshit consultant job on a project. The uh, the HooliNews thing maybe. Become his direct supervisor. Talk to him, get to know him. If he admits to making a single commit while on the clock, report to me.”

“And um, if he doesn’t?”

“ _Then_ we offer money. 50k and a promotion. And you’ll be able to tell me what kind of guy he is.”

“Um… okay.”

“If he’s material for a more senior dev position, that kind of thing. You know I’m always on the lookout for talent.”

“I know, Gavin.”

“Found you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did, Gavin.”

“Okay, run along. I’ll call you.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Jared walked a little dejectedly back to his office. He’d only admit this to his therapist, but he didn’t like his job a lot of the time. He was very grateful for it and the security, stability and status it provided, but he hated things like this. Why not just offer the guy a paltry 200k and give him a good promotion? His tech was potentially worth millions. Well, he reasoned with himself. He supposed that was why Gavin was a billionaire and Jared wasn’t, because he didn’t think like that. He called up Bill who managed the HooliNews dev team and asked him if there was anything he needed a hand with. At his work station a few units away, Richard was reading the Hooli Slack channel unaware that the change he’d begged the universe for the night before as gummy-induced sleep overtook him, had arrived.

* * *

**ii. this charming man**

“Hello! Richard Hendricks, right?”

Richard looked up, and up, and up. The guy looked like he could moonlight as a fire escape ladder. He was pretty nicely dressed in actually well-fitting business casual, which made what was probably a very bony body, going by the thinness of his wrists and the hollows in his cheeks, look sleek and confident. Richard accepted the handshake and smiled a little awkwardly. “Uhh, yeah, that’s me.”

“I’m Jared Dunn. I’m your new supervisor. Maybe you could come with me into my office, and we can talk?”

Jared made pleasant small talk about the weather and the new campus chef and the joys of al fresco lunches on the walk over to his office, a fairly modest little room which nevertheless spoke of privilege. Richard and his division had “floating desks” which basically meant you grabbed whatever station was free and logged on with your ID. Luckily people’s instinct for habit meant most of the programmers had a regular station, unofficially, although some supervisors had devised initiatives to break it up for… reasons. Which people either played along with for a few days before reverting back to their regular station, or they found a new regular station until the next idiotic shakeup. Depended on the supervisor. But Jared had his own office, with a door, and some nice, homey touches. Richard was jealous. He would have loved to at least have some fun stuff on his station, but since it wasn’t officially his all personal effects were banned. He noticed Jared had a framed photo of himself with a very old woman (presumably his mom), a calendar with bird illustrations, a desk globe. Jared sat at his desk and indicated the chair opposite, and Richard sat down.

“Nice office,” Richard said politely, pointed at the calendar. “Audubon illustrations?”

Jared smiled, and it was a weird smile, it was kind of… upside down. The corners of his mouth took a sharp turn down and his bottom lip flatlined, revealing uneven, slightly yellow teeth. “Oh! Do you like birds, Richard?”

Richard shrugged. “Uh, sure, yeah, I like uh. I used to… my parents had an old copy of Birds of America and I liked leafing through it as a kid.”

“So did I!” Jared said enthusiastically. “Well, at the library. But I was able to buy my own copy a couple of years ago.” He sounded weirdly proud about that last thing.

“Cool, that’s uh, nice, so, uh, what’s, what’s up?” Richard said. He tried telling himself to be calm and collected but he was stuttery and nervous. He could hear it. He’d checked the employee bulletin board only half an hour earlier, nothing about a new supervisor for his division, which meant this was about him, specifically. Maybe he’d fucked up somehow.

Jared’s smile smoothed and turned the right way up, more normal, but looked less authentic for some reason. “Management would like you to consult on the HooliNews project.”

Richard frowned. “Uhhh, okay? Are they having infrastructure issues? Do they need more hands on deck?”

“Yes and no,” Jared said. “they are having some lagging issues and could use a fresh pair of eyes, but this is really about getting to know you. So you’ll work locally, under my supervision.”

Richard frowned. “I don’t understand. Getting to know me? Is this like some new, initiative-”

“Would you like some water? Tea?”

Richard shook his head. He didn’t trust himself with liquids when he was stressed out. He didn’t want to splutter all over the guy’s desk globe.

“Okay. Well, I have good news for you. Gavin Belson has taken a look at your Pied Piper application.”

Richard blinked. Holy shit. “Gah- Gavin Beh? Sun? Wuh?”

“First of all, let me ask you, Richard, and please be honest, have you worked on this app on company time?”

“Oh uh, no no, no,” Richard said. “only in my spare time, don’t worry, I focus on my work for Hooli while I’m on site.”

Jared nodded. “Have you ever used any Hooli equipment to develop or test Pied Piper?”

“No, not at all,” Richard said, shaking his head. “I wouldn't. Only my own, like, Macbook, haha. At home.”

“Very well.”

“So uh– you said– you said uh had taken a look at uh”

“Gavin?”

“Yes. Hehehe. Gavin.” It was kind of bizarre, talking about one of the richest men in the world using like, his first name, with a dude that was like, clearly in his orbit. He was just one degree away from Gavin right now basically. One degree away from potential funding. “What um, what did uh he say??”

“Gavin is intrigued. He thinks you might have real talent.”

Richard beamed. “Um uh, is there, a possibility, of maybe my meeting? With? Hehehe Gavin? Because uh, I am actually pursuing funding? For? Pied Piper? So if he’s interested-”

Jared made a ‘calm down’ movement with his big hands, smiled disarmingly. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Pied Piper is, like I said, promising, but Gavin wants to know a little more about you before he goes into business with you.”

Richard slumped a little in his chair. What the fuck? Why couldn’t the tech just speak for itself? If he had to like, charm this result of unholy union twixt tree and excel spreadsheet he was boned. He knew he had good qualities. He was an agile thinker, a good coder, pretty like, easy-going. But he was not charming. Richard bit his lip. He couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t fuck this one up. He let his eyes drift to Jared’s employee card, pinned to his shirt. JARED DUNN, it read, next to a little photo of Jared. D.O.B. 040486. April fourth, Richard thought. That was only two weeks from now. He’d put a reminder in his phone so he could wish him happy birthday. If he could just break down the quality of “charm” into a series of tasks, maybe he could do this. He nodded.

“Okay, I’m up for that. And uh, grateful for the opportunity!”

“I’m glad to hear it, Richard! Have you had lunch?”

“Only like, an energy bar.”

“Let’s go get some fresh air.”

They went over to the canteen and got some salad bowls and drinks, and Richard followed Jared out to the green area. Hooli campus was kind of donut-shaped, with a big park in the middle, with handsome trees and benches. Richard wasn’t a big fan, honestly. He felt watched when he was in it. Windows everywhere. Like a panopticon.

“Here’s my favorite spot,” Jared said, sitting down on a bench underneath several trees, providing cool shade. “look up there.”

He nodded up at one of the trees. Richard looked, squinted. “Uh… is… that a nest?”

“Yes!” Jared said. “We have a Hooli sparrow family! Three hatchlings and a mama bird.”

“Oh, cute.”

“Yeah, I want to bring my binoculars, but I’m afraid it could get misconstrued and I would be labeled a sex pest.” He leaned in a little. “But when I’m on the clock, I only have eyes for one kind of chick!”

God, what a dad. “I uh, I like astronomy,” Richard said.

“Oh?”

“Like uh… that’s like, my hobby. I go out with my telescope. At night.”

Jared smiled at him. “That sounds very interesting.”

Richard shrugged. “Yeah it uh- it is- I mean- like, it’s nice to have a hobby and uh… nature.” He shoveled salad into his mouth to stop himself from talking.

“Would you like to tell me a little bit about Pied Piper?”

Richard nodded, chewing, started gesticulating, and swallowed. “Yeah uh, it’s like, a music search app? You can upload music into it and it searches last.fm for similar songs. I’d like to uh get a Spotify API too, down the line, for more complete searches. So uh, it can be used by songwriters, musicians, ummm… like, it could be great for uh, revealing plagiarism. Or even just fun stuff like identifying samples!”

“How do you foresee monetizing?”

Richard put more salad in his mouth to give himself time to think. “Ummm,” he said, eventually. “like… freemium and premium. Users would pay for extra features.”

Jared smiled mildly. “Okay. Well, I am impressed with the speed of it.”

“I wrote a compression algorithm like a month ago,” Richard said. “sped it up like fuck. Which uh I think gives a really good user experience!” He smiled inanely. Good UX was a selling point, right? But Jared didn’t look very impressed, he still smiled placidly, eating his salad, occasionally flicked his eyes up to the nest. Richard cleared his throat. “So uh. How is… this thing going to work? The uh, consultancy thing?”

“Bill, that’s the team leader, will send you a few blocks to review and a description of the issues. I’d like you to copy me into any communication with him and touch base-” Jared shrugged. “I don’t know, a few times a week?”

“Uh, maybe we could do lunch every day?”

Jared frowned a little. “Do lunch?”

“Yeah, like now, this is like, uh… or um, you probably already have like… people you eat with. Uh.”

“No, um, I think that’s a nice idea. I’d like that.”

“Yeah because that way, it can just be like, conversational, like now, because this is pretty nice, right?”

Jared smiled again and Richard thought he could see the corners of his mouth pull downwards. He nodded. Richard grinned. His mom was right and every woman he’d ever been on a date with were wrong. He could be charming.

* * *

**iii. to the birds**

The next day Jared woke up and did his little routine – felt grateful, twenty minutes of yoga, set an intention. _Today I will learn more about Richard Hendricks._ He smiled a little. His first impression of the programmer was good. He flipped open his laptop and started drafting an email to Gavin while he had his breakfast.

_Richard Hendricks appears competent, enthusiastic and flexible. He can be a little inarticulate when he’s excited or unsure. He asks intelligent questions and is friendly. I like him._

Jared looked at what he’d written, and deleted the last sentence.

_He is likable and with some more experience and relevant training he could be a potential candidate for a senior dev position or a team leader role. According to Hendricks, the development of Pied Piper has exclusively taken place on his own equipment in his spare time. I consider it unlikely he’s unaware of the clause in his contract saying all software developed on company time is the property of Hooli Inc. However, he seems ignorant of the value of what he’s created. My research indicates nobody else has seen the potential in the Pied Piper application either, as the only mentions of it I can find online are Hendricks’ own Reddit posts and tweets, none of which has driven much engagement._

Jared paused his writing, scratched his face.

_He’s very good looking. His eyes are sparkling blue and his hair has curls. He has a strong nose, like a Roman general. His body_

Criminy, what was he doing? He backspaced, shook his head.

_My recommendation is still to offer him a lump sum of $200 000 and a promotion, as well as a leading role in any development project incorporating his tech._

He considered the last sentence and decided to leave it. Gavin wouldn’t be happy but 50k was honestly a joke. They spent more than that on things that turned out to be garbage every day (Gavin had spent nearly as much on a specially designed ergonomic chair which he’d ended up throwing out the window in a rage) and Richard’s compression algorithm could represent something revolutionary. Jared saved the email as a draft, then got ready to leave for work. He looked around his condo and smiled. He knew he would have to leave the condo behind for good very soon, and he was determined to enjoy it as much as he could while he still had the chance. He gently angled a photo of Minh, his favorite foster mother, before walking out the door.

*

“Bill messaged me to say he was very impressed with your work!” Jared said. “He hadn’t expected you to be this quick or thorough.”

Richard shrugged, picking at his salad. He looked a little more drawn than he had the day before. They were outside again, under the sparrow’s nest tree. “I stayed late. Pulled some overtime.”

“Dangerous practice in a place like Hooli,” Jared said. “now he wants you to look at ten other buggy things. I’m going to limit the load though. The point of this isn’t to work you into a paste.”

“You sure are different than any other supervisor I had,” Richard said. “I feel like that’s exactly the point a lot of the time. That’s partly why I hope I can fund Pied Piper. At least that way I’ll get ulcers because of something I own.”

“You keep talking about funding,” Jared said. “you know, when it comes to startups, Gavin prefers to acquire rather than invest.”

“Um, have you talked to him recently?”

“Well, not about Pied Piper, but yes, we touch base every morning. Don’t change the subject, Richard. How would you feel about selling Pied Piper, if that was on the table?”

Richard frowned. “I don’t know. Kind of the point of all this is to like, do my own thing. I’ll have to think about it.”

“What kind of money would make it something you wouldn’t have to think about?”

Richard smiled, shrugged. “I don’t care all that much about money. I’d just like to uh… if I could like be my own boss, make my own rules… I think that would be a good life. I love to code, it’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at. I don’t want to like, lie on a megayacht while supermodels suck my toes or whatever.”

“Um,” Jared said.

“Fuck, uh, sorry, sometimes my brain to mouth filter doesn’t work.”

“No um, I just… everybody cares about money, Richard. At least they do here.”

Richard shot him a look. “If I became a sys admin in bumfuck Oklahoma I’d make more money, have my own house and acres of space, and be able to see my family other than on Skype and Facetime. I’m here because I’m good at coding and I want to be somewhere that’s appreciated, not just fix Effie’s printer and set up Gary’s e-mail. I’m not an idiot. Most startups aren’t unicorns. But a lot of them do okay. I think Pied Piper could, too.” He suddenly got a contrite look on his face. “Sorry. Uh. I’m being an ass. Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

“It’s perfectly fine, Richard,” Jared said. “no overtime tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” he said and smiled a little embarrassed, before looking around, and then he grabbed Jared’s arm. “hey, look!”

“Oh!” Jared said. “It’s the mama bird! Shh!”

They listened and could just about hear the excited chirping of the hatchlings. Jared almost held his breath, and Richard’s hand was still on his arm. He looked over and Richard was grinning big, then he met Jared’s eye and flushed a little, took his hand away.

“Um, sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” Jared looked up at the nest and could see the mama sparrow’s tail bob over the side. “What a lovely moment.”

Richard sighed. “Yeah. Man, I spend so much time looking at screens. It’s fucking nice being reminded things like that exist.”

“I, um.” Jared smiled. “I go birding, when I have the time.”

“Oh, yeah?” Richard sounded interested.

“Yeah I uh. It’s been something I did since I was only about ten, eleven. It’s one of my favorite things to do.”

“Cool,” Richard said, like he meant it.

“I don’t- I don’t suppose you’d-”

“What?”

“No, um forget it.”

“No, what?”

“Um, I was going to ask you if you’d be interested in coming along some time,” Jared said, and his face felt a little hot. “but, that would be inappropriate, seeing as how I’m your superior, and you’re probably not interested anyway. I’m sorry.” Jared felt stupid. He wasn’t a reckless sort of person, but anyone taking an interest in his hobbies was rare. He chanced a glance over at Richard, who was smiling a little, chasing the last leaves in his salad bowl with his fork.

“We’re supposed to touch base every day, yeah?”

“Um, yes? Something like that?”

“Well, are we required to be onsite?”

“Well, I suppose not.”

“Then I suggest we book a meeting offsite tomorrow and leave a couple hours early, and we’ll talk about work somewhere there also happens to be birds and stuff.”

“Richard!” Jared said, a little scandalized, then grinned. “Bring good walking shoes.”

* * *

Some times, when Richard couldn’t sleep and the gummies took their sweet time working, he thought about how he would die. He’d sweated through a few choice humiliating options, but even his insomniac mind hadn’t been able to conceive of something as pathetic as “moved physically outside for an hour, RIP”. Still, it seemed likelier and likelier by the minute. His foot slipped on loose dirt and he doubled over, grabbing his knees. The lunge made hot sweat trail down his face and into his eyes, and it stung.

“Are you okay?” Jared asked, and walked down the trail a little bit to meet him.

“Yeah uhhh I’m uhhhh. Fine.”

Jared had sent him an email to meet him in the Hooli lot at three and they’d driven out to a park area in Jared’s Prius. Jared had at some point changed into a T-shirt and jeans, looking bizarrely normal. After parking somewhere flat-ish but definitely not an actual parking space he’d walked determinedly up a small trail, Richard following. After fifteen minutes Richard had taken off his hoodie and tied it around his waist, after half an hour he’d felt a little dizzy, it had been an hour now and he was pretty sure his vision was going. He hadn’t actually lied to Jared, he really did go out with the telescope pretty frequently and he did appreciate nature, but what he did was he drove and maybe walked a little bit to a nice spot, he didn’t… hike, and never in the fucking sun. And if he did, he wouldn’t choose trails that just went up and up and up and _up._

“Here.” Jared handed him his water flask and Richard’s thirst outweighed his fear of germs and he drank deep. “Only a little longer to go, I promise it will be worth it.”

“Yeah, cool, I’m uh, like, this is nice,” Richard said.

“You look like you have scarlet fever.”

Richard laughed and shoved him a little, and Jared looked delighted. “Oh! I’m ‘ribbing’ you. We’re ‘joshing’. This almost never happens.” He composed his face. “I shouldn’t, of course. As your superior. I apologize.”

“It’s fine, okay, I’ve caught my breath, let’s uh.”

“Last stretch, I promise.” Jared slid a comforting hand up his arm and set off. Easy when your body is about 90% legs, Richard thought a little spitefully, tried to ignore the thumping of his heart, and followed.

Finally, finally, the trail evened and flattened, and they reached a verdant area with a big pond where plenty of water birds were frolicking. Richard recognized herons, cormorants, ducks.

“Holy shit,” Richard said, mouth falling open.

“Isn’t this nice?” Jared said eagerly.

“It’s like – it’s fucking beautiful? It’s like something out of a Zelda game? We need to check for heart containers and treasure chests.”

“What?”

“Jesus fuck, how aren’t there a ton of other people here, ruining it?”

Jared shrugged. “It’s a bit of a trek and off the beaten paths. I see other people here sometimes, other birders mainly. But yeah, I have it to myself a lot of the time.”

Jared got a picnic blanket out of his backpack and spread it out, and they sat down on it. Richard lay back, groaned, put his forearm over his eyes.

“Oh, yeah.”

“I hope you’re not going to fall asleep. This is a meeting, remember?”

“Yeah I know.” Richard sighed. “I wrote Bill some suggestions for fixing the bugs he sent me instead of testing everything myself this time. Uhh… and I have some suggestions to limit the push notifications, because right now I just think there’s way too many of them, and the lagging issues are going to come back eventually if they’re not dealt with, not to mention they’re going to drive users insane.”

“Excellent, Richard.”

“And I thought about what you said about selling Pied Piper and uhh… I think I’m going to pass on that, for the time being. I haven’t like, really tried to get funding and I uh, think I want to go that route before uh. Selling it off.”

Jared smiled. “I thought you might say that.”

Something landed on Richard’s chest and he gasped and scrambled, but it was just an energy bar. “Oh, thanks uh!”

“Thought you might need something after that trek.”

“Yeah,” Richard said, sitting up and shooting Jared a grateful look. “so uh… do you think Gavin might want to invest at all or uh…”

“You’re going to have to work a lot more on your presentation for that to happen,” Jared said. “budget, avenues for revenue, growth plan, milestones.”

Richard sighed deeply. “Biz dev shit.”

Jared leaned in a little. “There’s a reason I went to school for five years, you know.”

“I dropped out,” Richard said.

Jared nodded. “I know, it was in your file. Can I ask why?”

“It wasn’t like… uh… like I’d imagined, I guess. And I hated all the fucking group assignments! Some of my friends were uh… not like, the… I don’t want to sound shitty, but maybe not the most academic types? So I ended up working for two. Or three. Just to hack a decent grade. Fuck. I lived off caffeine and sugar. One time I just ate coffee granules with a spoon. And there was so much basic shit, shit I taught myself when I was fifteen. But Hooli offered test-based job applications, so… no degree necessary. Seemed like a better deal.”

“I’m sorry you had a bad experience.”

“Where did you go?”

“Vassar.” Jared sighed. “Happiest years of my life. It was the first time I ever really felt like I belonged.” He smiled, scratched his neck. “Sorry, this got deep.”

“Oh, I know what you mean. I’m still waiting.”

They were quiet for a moment, and then Jared got to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “let’s go see how many species are out today. I’ll let you use my binoculars.”

*

“Take a right and uhh… there, that’s my house, yeah. Right there.”

Jared pulled over and stopped the car, smiled at him. “Thanks for coming out with me, Richard.”

“Uh, thank youu, for uh, a productive meeting ha”

Jared grinned, looked away a little. “We’re so bad. Lunch under the tree tomorrow?”

“Yeah uh, okay. See you, Jared.”

“See you, Richard!”

Richard got out of the car and walked into Erlich’s bungalow, smiling to himself. He felt tired, but like, good tired. Not that he thought he’d get addicted to hiking and shit, but it was a satisfying feeling anyway.

“Ah, young Richard,” Erlich said, emerging from the kitchen eating yogurt with one of his special, off-limits spoons. “what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Richard said, still smiling. “just uh, work shit.”

“Bullshit. You are positively glowing. Are you pregnant?”

“Ha ha, super funny.” He went to shower and then went inside his room, opened the spreadsheet he kept with lists of things he needed to troubleshoot and do. He couldn’t really focus though and the work was shoddy. He chewed a pencil and sighed. Then he dialed Jared’s number. He picked up almost immediately.

_“Hi, Richard!”_

“Uh, hey, man.”

_“What can I do for you?”_

There was a pause. “I kind of lied to you.”

_“Oh?”_

“I uh. Like. My laptop? Died? Like two weeks ago? And it was in the shop for like three days. I ran a test on my friend Big Head’s app, which uh, a fucking disaster, the Pentagon should hire him as some kind of digital nuclear warhead to be honest, and uh… well, during – only during, like my lunch breaks, I ran some tests on my work station. On uh Pied Piper.”

 _“Oh,”_ Jared said.

“I just wanted to like… be uh, honest with you. Like, no BS.”

_“Thank you, Richard.”_

“That was uh, that was it, really. See you tomorrow.”

 _“Can’t wait,”_ Jared said.

Richard hung up. He wondered if that had been a smart thing to admit to, but he just wasn’t brought up to lie, and especially if it was someone he actually liked it was impossible, it became a weight on top of him that increased by the day. He knew Jared was like, super corporate and maybe he just pretended to be friendly to get as much info as possible on his tech, but he was also- endearing and sweet and goofy and- Richard realized that he was pretty much the first person at Hooli to talk to him like a real human being.

That had to count for something.

Weight off his chest, he returned to his work, and it flowed.

* * *

**iv. to the stars**

Jared logged into his email and looked at his draft for Gavin, made an edit.

_According to Hendricks, the development of Pied Piper has exclusively taken place on his own equipment in his spare time, but he has admitted to some minor testing of the application on Hooli equipment during work breaks over a three day period when his laptop was being repaired. He is focussed on the music search functionality of Pied Piper and treats his compression algorithm, which I assess as having real revenue potential, as an afterthought._

He fixed some typos, added some more information, read it over. Saved the draft. Gavin had instructed him to report back immediately if he learned about any work on Pied Piper done on Hooli time, but he decided he’d play dumb and say he thought it was too inconsequential to mention. If he did send it. He honestly wasn’t sure he would yet. He knew Hooli legal would jump on that detail. It might not hold up in court, but it wasn’t like Richard had the resources for a legal fight with Hooli. But of course Jared’s primary loyalty should be to Hooli. To Gavin. He looked at the time. Finally, lunchtime. He smiled, closed his browser window, and set off for the salad bar.

Under the sparrow’s nest tree Jared showed Richard pictures of birds he’d taken and Richard showed him his attempts at star photography.

“How beautiful,” Jared said.

“Yeah, when conditions are right, it can be really good. But when the pollution and shit is really bad, like, forget it, and also places with a lot of uh, electric uh, like street lights and stuff? Light pollution, basically. Ruins it. But um, I know some places.”

“Well, I’m just fascinated,” Jared said.

“I’d uh… schedule a meeting but uh… it would have to start at like, ten, eleven at night. Might look weird, haha.”

“You could just ask me as a friend,” Jared said, a little hopefully. “if you want.”

Richard grinned shyly, ran a hand through his hair. “Uhhh well uhh on um Saturday it’s uhh actually supposed to be like… super clear? And uh, if you don’t have plans I…”

“Yes!” Jared said. “I’d love to.” He grinned and felt his face flush a little.

“Cool! Um, cool. I uh, I could uh, pick you up if um. My landlord lets me use his car.”

“I can drive, I don’t mind?”

“Well, I’ll ask him first, if he says no we’ll call that plan B.”

“Can’t wait,” Jared said. He felt weirdly giddy. They hadn’t actually talked about work once that whole meeting – but whatever, they were on their lunch break, they weren’t obliged to if they didn’t want to, and they’d made plans, as friends. He kept humming to himself the rest of the workday.

* * *

Saturday night, half past nine, Jared got a text that said _come down_ and walked down the stairs of his building in his warm jacket to see Richard in a big van with ‘Aviato‘ painted on the sides. He put his backpack in the backseat and climbed in the front next to Richard. Richard told him his landlord had assumed he was going on a date and given him very specific instructions to “sling that dick, young Richard, but I better not find your ass imprints on my reupholstered seats tomorrow” but not to worry. They drove for a while, left the city behind, up a hill, and Richard finally pulled over and they walked a stretch until they had a good view of the city. There were other people out too with binoculars, telescopes and cameras, taking advantage of the clear night sky.

“Goodness me, Richard.”

“See all the city lights? That can really mess with your view of the stars, especially on a street level. But when the conditions are like today, it’s pretty special.”

“It really is.”

Richard started getting stuff out of his backpack, spread out a blanket, uncapped his telescope and set it up on a tripod.

“Um, I brought hot chocolate,” Jared said. “and sandwiches.”

“You did? Awesome!”

They sat down on the blanket and Jared poured out cups.

“It’s pretty cool just watching with the naked eye tonight,” Richard said. “but here, um, here, try, focus on Venus.”

“Venus?”

“The really bright one, right there, look.”

Jared leaned down and looked through the telescope and while it took him a little while to get the hang of it, he soon managed to focus on the shimmering, white disc. “Gorgeous,” he said.

“The brightest object in the sky, after the sun and the moon,” Richard said. “it’s a mysterious planet, too. The surface is mostly volcanic rock. We don’t know what it looked like before it got covered with lava, or how it happened. If it just got engulfed in fire from within or if there was some kind of external event. Maybe ancient Venusians just couldn’t give up the cheap flights and red meat even though their teenagers begged them to. Heh.”

Jared shuddered a little. “How scary.”

“It’s a beautiful deserted battlefield though,” Richard said. “and um, it has phases, like the moon. The ancient Romans thought it was two planets before they figured out they could never see Vesper and Lucifer in the same sky together.” Richard cleared his throat. “You really have to stop me if I’m boring the shit out of you.”

“No, it’s interesting!” Jared said. “I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“What’s uh, what’s your favorite planet?”

Jared laughed. “My favorite planet? Well, Earth, I suppose.”

“It’s a good choice. We’re the only known planet with life.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s um, we’re in something called the Goldilocks zone, like, just right. And there are a whole bunch of other factors that means we can sit here and talk and look at the sky together. The Great Oxygenation Event, which means we have something to breathe, the Earth’s liquid iron outer core which provides the magnetic field that shields us. But one day the Earth will die too, and maybe some other freakishly lucky species will look out on our corpse. But I hope we’ll always be blue. Heh.”

“Well,” Jared said after a pause. “that certainly puts things in perspective.”

Richard finished his sandwich and drained his cocoa, then laid back down on the blanket, sighing. “I uh, well this might come as a surprise seeing as how I’m a programmer, but I have some issues with stress and anxiety. Looking up at the sky and feeling less significant than a bug actually helps. So what if I fuck up my life? Haha.”

Jared laid down too, and turned his face to look at him. “You’re more significant than a bug to me.”

Richard smiled a little sheepishly. “You’re like… way too nice for this business, Jared.”

“If you want my professional opinion, so are you.”

“Hey, Jared.” Richard rolled over on his side, put his hands under his head, arms close to his chest. “Thought experiment. If, like, big if, Pied Piper got funding, would uh maybe you like to go into business together?”

“What?” Jared laughed.

“I mean, I’d need someone like you, someone with your skill set. And you can like, stand being in a room with me, which is a big plus. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to offer Hooli pay, but uh… I mean, maybe I could be, at some point?”

Jared grinned. “What, you want to steal me away from Gavin?”

“Yeah. He’s old, he’s over the hill, ditch the zero and get with a hero, baby.”

Jared laughed again. “You’re so lucky I won’t tell him you said that.”

“Okay, okay.” Richard sat up and adjusted the telescope. “Come here, let me bore you with some moon geography instead.”

* * *

Jared saw Gavin pretty regularly at 9:15, and this morning was no exception. He was looking forward to returning to his office, and smiled mildly. “Well, if you don’t need me for anything else, I’ll say goodbye for now.”

“Hang on, Jared. What’s the status on that, that compression thing you were talking about. What’s the guy’s name. Robert.”

“Richard, Richard Hendricks,” Jared said. “um… I did like you suggested, and gave him some work on the HooliNews project.”

“How’s that going?” Gavin asked.

“Oh, very well. Bill is so pleased with Richard’s performance he actually requested a full time transfer to his team, but I’ve said no, so far. Richard is a real resource.”

“That’s what I told you.” Gavin tapped his nose. “Talent. I know how to sniff it out. How about, um, has he worked on that thing of his onsite?”

“No, not as far as I’ve been able to find out,” Jared said. “honestly I think Richard is too smart for that.”

“You’ve spent some time with him?”

“A little,” Jared said.

“Well?”

Jared shrugged. “He’s a pretty typical programmer. Young and nerdy. But he’s a nice guy. He’s ambitious too. He’s less keen on selling than getting funded.”

“What are the odds of him getting funded?”

“Honestly, low. He doesn’t have the right network or experience, and he’s focused on the completely wrong thing. I asked him how he planned to monetize a music search and he mumbled something about freemium and premium.”

Gavin snorted loudly. “Jesus Christ. Joe Blow on the internet doesn’t want to pay shit for shit. Businesses and advertisers are the only way to get paid.”

“True.” Jared felt a little bad, he didn’t want to like, make fun of Richard with Gavin behind his back.

“Does he come from money?” Gavin asked.

“Richard? Not at all. He’s from Tulsa. Pretty normal picket fence background. His mother is a schoolteacher, his father works in insurance and his sister is a flight attendant.”

“Then 50k should blow his mind, even if he doesn’t think he wants to sell. Float it.”

“Will do.”

“Okay, see you later.”

“Yep.”

Jared trudged back to his office, trying to sort out his emotions. This was a tricky situation. He had, frankly, become pretty infatuated with Richard. He felt he’d done a good job of hiding that fact from Gavin, but he wasn’t so sure he’d done so well in hiding it from Richard. Who didn’t even try to hide how much he liked Jared. Jared wondered if that was what he responded to, just being openly _liked_ by someone. Then he thought, no, he’d like Richard no matter what. He was very much his type physically, and more importantly, he was sweet, smart and kind. But that didn’t matter. This could not under any circumstances become a thing. But it was so… _hard_ to try and curb it.

While Jared had had a lot of different experiences in his life, romance hadn’t really defined a lot of them. But every moment he shared with Richard felt studded with romance and he just didn’t want to stop that at all. Even just spending 40 minutes together under the tree in plain view of half of Hooli eating salad bowls made his heart skip a beat thinking about it. But Saturday night… Richard had eventually stopped droning off space facts and they’d just laid next to each other on the blanket, talking about all kinds of things - Richard’s family which seemed sweet and blessedly normal, Jared’s adventures in gluten-free baking, Richard’s enthusiasm for Radiohead (apparently a popular musical group), Jared’s desire to visit the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder, Colorado, their shared love of dogs and old cinema. He didn’t remember dropping off but at one point Richard had shook him awake and he was cold and a little stiff from lying on that blanket on the ground half the night and his mouth tasted sour and stale. Richard had taken his hand and pulled him over to the telescope and he’d seen Mercury, grey and bold in the face of the first rays of sunlight. Then the sun had risen slowly, and they’d sat quietly together, close, close enough their arms touched, and watched. Gosh, it had been beautiful. Jared was glad Richard hadn’t asked him to join his proposed company then. At that moment he would have followed Richard into hell.

* * *

**v. the birthday party**

A day passed, and another, and then Richard sent Jared a location and requested an offsite meeting, so he clocked off a little early and drove his Prius to the place, following his GPS. He found a nearby parking spot and followed the map on his phone until he found a twee-looking bakery, and walked inside.

“Jared!”

Richard got up from a round table with a checkered table cloth and waved. Old bubblegum pop was playing softly in the background, Jared recognized Skeeter Davis’ “I Can’t Stay Mad At You”. [[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXuFjhF0v0o)]

“Hello, Richard,” Jared said, grinning. “wouldn’t have pegged this for your kind of place?”

“I uh. It’s like, a specialty bakery, like for all kinds of dietary restrictions and shit?”

Jared’s eyebrows raised. “Oh- for me? How- how thoughtful, Richard.”

“Let’s uh, order.”

They walked over to the counter and Jared grinned. Behind clean glass colourful cupcakes, neat slices of cake, generous cookies and shiny pies lay. “Goodness.”

“What can I get you?” the server said. She wore a beehive and very red lipstick and her arms were covered with tattoos.

“Oh well uh – I’m vegan, gluten free and allergic to cinnamon, do you have anything like that?”

“Fine if the goods were baked in the same kitchen as goods with cinnamon?”

“Oh- yes. Thank you.”

“Then I have these maple pecan cupcakes, these pina colada cupcakes, or this triple chocolate cake. All vegan, gluten free, no cinnamon.”

“Oh gosh I-” he turned to Richard. “I’m not used to this much choice!”

“One of each,” Richard said suavely, and Jared felt him place a hand at the small of his back. “and two coffees. My treat.”

“Make mine decaf,” Jared corrected.

“Very well. That’ll be thirty dollars altogether.”

Richard’s hand fell away. “Uh? Thi- yeah uh, sure uh.”

“Richard, you don’t have to pay-”

“Yeah uh, my treat, no problem. Um. Can we have a couple of spoons and a knife, or do your charge for that too? Uh.”

They spread their feast over the round table. “Summer Wine” [[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=791z7Nb985Y)] had started playing.

“This place is really cute,” Jared said.

“Expensive. Hu,” Richard mumbled.

“Richard, please don’t be silly, let me venmo you.”

“No! No, my treat, remember, come on, try something.”

Everything was moist and delicious and tasty. Jared thought he might slip into some kind of blissful sugar coma.

“Okay so uh, I’m gonna send you a link,” Richard told him.

“Okay,” Jared said, reached for his phone which pinged with a new message. “it’s an apk? You turned Pied Piper into an android app?”

“Just uh”

Jared downloaded the file and installed it on his phone. “Well, that’s very exciting, Richard, I’m sure Gavin would- um. What is this?” He frowned and looked at the little bird silhouette which had appeared among his apps, titled Sparrowcam.

“Um, open it.”

Jared tapped the icon and the screen turned green and said _Hello Jared :)_ before revealing a view of a nest with three hatchlings in it. He slapped a hand over his mouth. Richard leaned forward on his elbows and smiled shyly.

“Uh, do uh, do you like it?”

“This is-is this-how-”

“Yeah, it’s, the nest um, on campus? I put a little camera in the tree… well, my friend Big Head did it, I held the ladder, like, I’d do it, but my balance is kind of… not great and uh heights… uh… but I prepped all the hardware and wrote all the code for the transmission and I wrote the app… he just uh, went up on the ladder. Forget Big Head. And uh we waited until the mama bird was away so we wouldn’t stress her out.”

“I- oh, Richard-” he took a shuddery breath.

“Uh, do, you like it?” Jared’s face was doing a lot of strained things and Richard frowned. “Uh. Are you crying? Don’t uh. Do that. Don’t cry.”

Jared shook his head. “I love it, Richard.” He leaned in, reaching over the table, and hugged Richard, put a hand on the back of his neck.

“Good! Good. Like uh just.” Richard pulled back, smiled a little proudly. “Just a little um, Raspberry Pi, project, with uh, the camera module. Only took me a few hours.”

“It’s- the sweetest gift anyone has ever given me. OH!” He looked down on his phone, grabbed the sleeve of Richard’s shirt and pulled him in. “Look, Richard!”

On the screen, the mama bird had returned, and was feeding the hatchlings.

“It’s just a webapp, basically,” Richard said. “I’ll give you the url it’s streaming so you can look at it on your desktop too, if you feel like it.”

“Thank you,” Jared said. “gosh, I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m um, I’m glad you like it,” Richard grinned. “happy birthday, Jared!”

“What? Heavens, Richard, this isn’t my birthday.”

Richard’s face fell. “But uh. Your ID card. April 4th? Right?”

Jared cleared his throat. “My ID card says a lot of things.” He scratched his face. “I don’t actually know when my birthday is. April 4th is the day I started work at Hooli. And um… Gavin just called me Jared on the first day and wouldn’t be corrected, so I had it changed. I think Jared was his former PA.”

Richard’s mouth fell open. He looked like he was deciding which question to ask first. Jared chose for him.

“Donald,” he said. “my name is Donald.”

“Seriously??” Richard blinked. “Donald?”

“Yeah. I’ll show you my license if you want! But I prefer Jared. And uh… I don’t know when my birthday is because CPS lost my birth certificate in a move. I um, I grew up in the foster system. And this- oh,” Jared said, sniffing a little and smiling embarrassed when he felt a tear streak his cheek. “is the nicest birthday party anyone has thrown me in a very long time.”

Richard looked a little dumbfounded, then reached out and gently grabbed his wrist. “Well, it might be your birthday. You don’t know.”

“I suppose so, yes!”

“I’ll call you Donald if you want.”

“I really, really don’t.”

Richard bit his lip. “Uh, anything else you’d like to tell me?”

Jared laughed, shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know! I speak Vietnamese.”

“What the fuck?” Richard grinned.

“My favourite foster mother was a Vietnamese woman named Minh. She ran a little takeaway place in Boston, I was with her for four years, until she passed away. Cancer. She taught me to cook. I’m um, I’m pretty good.”

“Maybe uh, maybe you’ll cook for me sometime?”

Jared smiled. “Absolutely. _Có thực mới vực được đạo._ ”

Richard laughed incredulously.

* * *

"Did he like the app?” Big Head asked on the Hooli shuttle bus the next morning.

“Yeah he did,” Richard said, smiling. “he uh, got kind of emotional actually, and um, we hugged.”

“Good for you, man.” Big Head made a fist and Richard bumped it. “Have you like… have you told him you like him yet?”

“It’s got to be obvious by now, right?”

“I don’t know man,” Big Head said. “honestly, if a guy bought me a bunch of cake, I’d just think, cool, cake. And like, maybe nickname him Cake Man. Or The Cake Connection.”

Richard frowned. Cake Man? “What if the guy programmed you a fucking app broadcasting from the fucking tree you eat lunch under together every day?”

Big Head squinted, thought hard. “Yeah, that’s kind of different. I’d probably wonder about that. Although, if it was you, I’d assume you were doing it for practice.”

Richard’s face fell a little. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had fun putting together the Sparrowcam and figuring out how to make it work. “Really? Uh… but it’s different, with me and him. Uh. I think.”

“I’d still just come out and say it, if I were you. I mean, it sounds like he likes you back, from the way you tell it. And like he’ll be nice about it if he doesn’t.”

Richard slumped back in his seat. “Fuuuck.” His phone buzzed, and he fished it out of the pocket of his hoodie to look at it. “Oh, shit, it’s a message from Jared. He wants to know if I want to come over to his place for dinner tonight.”

“Nice,” Big Head said.

Richard’s face felt very warm and his fingers felt very sweaty when he typed _I’d love to!_ After a little consideration, he also added a red heart, and sent it along. He didn’t really like emoji but Big Head had a point. Why beat around the bush any longer.

“I’ll uh, I’ll tell him tonight.”

“Good luck, man. You deserve a break,” Big Head said.

* * *

**vi. 9:15**

Jared checked his phone walking into Hooli campus. He checked the Sparrowcam, for the fifth time that day. _Good morning, Jared :)_ it cheerfully greeted, the welcome text clearly changing by the time of day, a basic touch but it had still made Jared squeal with delight when he’d discovered it that morning. He put his hand on his heart, looking at the hatchlings. The mama bird had been in the nest too earlier, but she was clearly off to find food now. He was going to name them all. His first idea was Hooli, Dooli and Looli, but it kind of sounded too dumb. His next idea was Linda, Dolly and Emmylou, which he liked a lot better. But that wasn’t quite right either. He’d have to give it some thought. Then he opened his calendar, hoping his 9:15 with Gavin had been cancelled. It had not, it had instead been marked urgent. He made a frustrated noise, walked quickly over to his office to unload his jacket and bag, and then started the trek up to Gavin’s office.

He nodded at Hoover and Hoover nodded back, and he knocked on Gavin’s door. “Come in,” he said from inside, and Jared entered. Gavin was sitting on the low settee to the side of the room, the one you couldn’t see through any of the glass partitions from outside. Jared smiled a little and walked over, sank down on his knees in front of him. He ran a hand over Gavin’s crotch and was pleased to find he was already hard, which meant he could probably get this over with pretty quick.

“Ooh,” he said. “did you start without me?”

“I’ve been thinking about you all morning,” Gavin said. “go bend over my desk. I want to fuck you.”

 _Darn it,_ Jared thought. “That sounds so good. But you know I like to do this in the morning,” he said. “please, daddy.”

The endearment had the usual placating effect. Gavin’s expression softened a little.

“Have it your way. You can make it up to me later.”

“Mmm,” Jared sighed softly, mouthing at Gavin’s erection through his pants before unbuttoning them and taking it out, making sure to make appreciative little gasps. Gavin liked him making noise but Jared was terrified of somebody hearing, so it was a challenge being able to both keep Gavin happy and hopefully be completely discreet. He lapped at Gavin’s dick with broad swipes of his tongue, holding it by the base, before swallowing down with a sigh. 

“Oh jesus fuck, you are so good at this,” Gavin said. His palm was broad and insistent on the back of Jared’s head. “I’m going to fuck you so good later.”

“Mmmhmm,” Jared agreed, mouth full and tongue swirling. 

“Look at me.”

Jared stared up at him, angled his face a little to give him a better view of his thick dick slipping in and out of his mouth. He pulled off to breathe and tried to make his pants audible while he roughly jerked Gavin off, then bounced his dick off his cheek, all the while looking up.

“Ahh, you little freak,” Gavin told him.

“Uh huh,” Jared said and swallowed down again, deep, and Gavin started thrusting a little and he put his hands on Gavin’s hips to stop him, made stuttery little sounds around his dick and finally Gavin tipped his head back and came down Jared’s throat. He swallowed and slowly pulled off, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Fuck,” Gavin said, breathing hard. “there really is no better start to the day. Fuck a cup of coffee.”

Jared got to his feet. “Well, I have a lot of work to do today, so I guess I’ll-”

Gavin patted the seat next to him. “Sit down.”

Jared bit down his frustration. “Okay.” He sat down and Gavin draped his arm over the back of the settee behind him, and he absently tucked Gavin’s dick back in his pants, zipped them up and buttoned them with nimble movements of his long fingers. He’d worked for Hooli for six years and two years ago Gavin had offered him to work as his PA, and had to his questionable credit been very clear about what that would entail and not threatened any sanctions if he preferred to stay in his old position. Jared had, not very much to his credit, agreed. But the PA job had only lasted a year before he’d been promoted to junior business development manager, and another promotion was on the pipeline, but this was still happening. 

Jared wasn’t sure when he’d realized Gavin basically considered this a romantic relationship, but he should have known something was up when he’d bought the settee. He’d used to crouch under the desk before that, which was very awkward. So the settee was clearly for his benefit. And about two months prior, Gavin had asked him to move in with him. If Gavin was a man that told jokes, Jared would have thought he was joking. As it were, he’d had to seriously consider it. 

And he’d thought, _well. I could do worse._

He’d been flattered by what appeared to be genuine feelings, desire and attention, he’d reasoned with himself that while being on his own and independent in his lovely condo was great, companionship and security was better, and finally he’d told himself who would have ever thought gawky Donald Dunn would have been able to land himself a billionaire boyfriend? He’d never really been loved in return the way he’d longed for and probably had to accept that would never happen but as consolation prizes went, this one was still pretty spectacular. And Gavin had a great body and could be very generous and Jared knew how to handle his moods. It could be a decent life. Heck, it could be a pretty great life.

Then of course, Richard had come along, and all the things Jared had ever longed for had come in a two week rush of innocent romance and while he should have put a stop to it all before it had a chance to even begin he hadn’t _wanted_ to. He was pretty good at compartmentalizing. Maybe _too_ good.

“Did you put your condo up for sale yet?”

“Umm, no,” Jared admitted. “I’ve been so busy.”

“I’m sick of waiting,” Gavin said. “just grab your fucking toothbrush and come over to my house this weekend. My lawyer can handle your condo.”

Jared cleared his throat. “Um, Gavin.” He sighed. “I mean, are you sure you actually want to live together? What if you get sick of me.”

“I haven’t gotten bored of you for two years. That’s some kind of personal record, Vassar.”

“That’s blowjobs and business trips, not real life,” Jared said.

Gavin didn’t really like it when he talked back so Jared was a little surprised when he smiled a little softly at that, as much as he was capable of. “I think I’m ready for a little real life, Jared. Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of you.”

“And what about work? It’ll get awkward.”

“I’ve already thought about that,” Gavin said. “which is why I’m making you redundant. I already started the paperwork.”

Jared’s mouth fell open. “What? Goodness, Gavin, what did I ever-”

“You won’t have to work anymore, Vassar. Like I said. I’ll take care of you.” He leaned in and kissed Jared, put a big, possessive hand on his face.

* * *

**vii. the dinner date**

Richard had gone through his entire wardrobe five times and come to the conclusion his clothes all just fucking sucked. Eventually he’d pulled on black jeans and a checkered button down shirt, the least worst of a bad bunch. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and frowned. Did he look okay? Maybe if you liked skinny nerds with uncontrollable hair and bacne. He sighed so hard the mirror misted. He borrowed some of Dinesh’s aftershave and hoped the guys would leave him the hell alone.

“Give it to her good, Richard,” Erlich said as he passed the kitchen. “make her walk sideways, like a crab.”

“Um uh”

“Why do you smell like a Karachi whorehouse?” Gilfoyle asked as he passed the living room.

“Okay hah”

"Have fun," Big Head said, looking up from the game on the TV screen. Richard smiled gratefully.

He slinked out the door and the Lyft was there, waiting. He got in and they drove off for Jared’s building.

When they arrived Richard got out and Jared buzzed him in, and he walked up the stairs. He hadn’t actually been inside Jared’s condo before. He looked around a little unsurely on the fourth floor when a door opened and a familiar face grinned at him. “Richard!”

He walked over and reached up a little and Jared smiled a surprised smile and reached back and down into a tight hug. “Oh! It’s nice to see you. I’ve had a bad day.”

“Oh, no, uh, what happened?” Richard asked, into the side of Jared’s head.

“Oh, let’s not talk about all that right now,” Jared said, pulled back and smiled. “I’m just really glad you’re here. Come on in.”

Jared’s condo was pretty neutral and modern with some quirky touches. It kind of got more interesting the more you looked at it. Kind of like Jared. Richard looked around. “Man, nice place.”

“Thank you. Gosh, hope you’re hungry.”

“Oh uh yeah, starving!”

“Make yourself comfortable,” Jared said, walking into the tiny kitchen section. “put on some music if you want.”

“Oh, yeah- uh-” Richard got his phone out and connected it to Jared’s speakers, then opened the Spotify app. “like what are, you in the mood for?”

“Anything is fine.”

Richard cleared his throat, swiped on his phone, and then “Love Songs” by Margo Guryan [[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRridT1NTBM)] started playing. He hadn’t come to mess around. Jared turned around to look at him, grinned. He was distributing food into deep bowls - first rice noodles, then crispy greens, then sliced tofu, then crushed peanuts and bean sprouts, and finally tiny hand rolled deep fried spring rolls. Finally he spooned over sauce and brought both bowls into the living room.

“What would you like to drink?”

“Um, just water.”

“Chopsticks or fork?”

"Uh… I… can try chopsticks.”

Finally they sat on Jared’s sofa, eating (Jared had given him a chopsticks crash course and he’d picked it up quick), and the Spotify algorithm had pulled up Sufjan Stevens’ “Futile Devices” [[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MpKP9b_NJQ)], which was such a perfect choice Richard wished he’d thought of it himself.

“This is super good,” Richard said. “it’s like restaurant food.”

“Well, I learned all I know in a takeaway.”

“What’s this called?”

“Oh, it doesn’t really have a name. What-I-Had-In-The-Fridge-Bowl.”

“Ha. In my house that would mean some Rocky Road, IPAs and energy drinks.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

Richard nodded. “Nom nom,” he mumbled.

Jared laughed.

“What?”

“Did you just say ‘nom nom’ out loud?”

“No?” Richard said.

“Yes, you did!”

“No, I didn’t,” Richard said. “hu. Calm down.”

Jared snorted and set off laughing again.

Bowls long since emptied and put aside, Jared was leaning his head against his hand on the back of the sofa, facing Richard, who was enthusiastically gesticulating and talking about quantum theory and the multiverse.

“I still can’t believe that what sounds like the goofiest sci fi concept ever is taken seriously by real scientists,” Jared said.

“Well, scientists love goofy sci fi. And not all of them buy the multiverse theory. But uh, a lot of people do.”

“It just sounds like wishful thinking.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Like in some other dimension, I’m, oh I don’t know…” Jared smiled a little. “someone with a nice Santa Cruz family and three siblings and we all go camping together.”

“Or I’m the world’s biggest rock star.”

Jared laughed. “Or exactly the same except you have no sense of smell.”

“Or I’m your boyfriend.”

Jared pinked a little and put a hand up to his neck.

“Jared, uh-”

“Richard, we- I- listen, let’s just not. This is not a good idea. I really can’t.”

Okay, here it was. Richard steeled himself. “I know you’re my supervisor and HR rules and all about that,” he said. “b-but… I just… I like you, Jared. I just… you’re so fucking… like, special? Like uh. And I mean, I know I suck, I fucking know, I’m weird and poor and my hair is like uh”

“Your hair is perfect,” Jared blurted out and then slapped a hand to his mouth. Richard laughed.

“Okay, cool, that’s something I have going for me, but my point is, I know like,” he gesticulated a hand in front of himself, “I know this isn’t like George Clooney in a fucking coffee commercial here, but I just, I just really really like you and like, if you’ll give me a chance, I don’t care okay, I don’t care if it gets difficult or weird or awkward, or if I have to step the fuck up, I’m like, I fix fucking bugs for a living, I’m not fucking afraid- like, I’ll fight, is what I’m saying. I'd do anything if it meant I could be with you.”

Jared released a long breath. “You really don’t know a lot about me, Richard. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I mean, if you don’t feel the same that’s like, fine, obviously,” Richard said, a little waveringly. “I’m not gonna go all bloodthirsty reddit dude on you. I can just uh, like, leave, and we can, uh...”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Jared said in a thin voice.

Richard’s face broke out in an only slightly guarded grin. “Can uh” Richard’s voice broke suddenly and he cleared his throat. “can- can I kiss you? Um. Please?”

“Oh, goodness me,” Jared said, but leaned forward, and so did Richard, and then they met like magnets. The kiss was still and dry and shy but Richard’s heart was beating so hard he got the giddy idea it would hammer its way out of his chest, like the chestburster from Alien. He broke away a little to breathe but was still close, close to Jared’s face, so he brushed his nose to Jared’s and Jared laughed a breathy, surprised laugh and then they brushed their lips together and then they kissed again, and it was sweeter this time, Jared catching his bottom lip, and he tasted both a little salty and a little sweet, and Richard felt like he was flying. Then he felt Jared’s hand make its way up his thigh and he broke away.

“Um uh, ungh,” he said, twisting away.

“Gosh, Richard, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing, I- uh- okay, like, full disclosure, I told you I suck, right uh, well, um, I haven’t. Actually. Kissed a dude. Before. Or. Anything else’d. A dude.”

Jared stared. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. So uh, I mean, I like, I want to and I want to like- uh. Maybe we could, like, take it kinda slow? I mean I want to get there and- oh, fuck, don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing at-” Jared grinned. “I just- I’m just surprised. I’m, oh, Richard, I’m honored!”

“Yeah, yeah, uh.” Richard flushed a little, looked down at his hands, and then he felt Jared’s hand on his jaw, firmly pulling him in again, and then Jared’s lips were back on his and Richard knew that big speech he'd just given hadn't been bullshit. He could do anything, if he could have this.

*

Jared’s alarm clock gently illuminated his bedroom and it started playing birdsong. Normally he’d lie for a few moments and listen but instead he killed it, so as not to wake up Richard. Last night had been pretty unreal. They’d talked and kissed and kissed and it had turned late and Jared had offered him to stay, just to sleep, and he’d shyly undressed to his T-shirt and boxers and they’d kept talking and kissing until they both drifted off. Richard had turned on his back in his sleep, face tilted away. 

Jared knew this had been a very bad idea, but he didn’t feel an ounce of regret. Not even picturing Richard’s horrified reaction if he told him he’d been sleeping with his boss for two years and was about to move in with him could make him regret this. After Gavin had asked him, he’d pictured these kinds of mornings. Waking up together, watching him sleep. He’d stayed over before, of course, he’d accompanied him on several trips and been in some very luxurious hotel rooms, and sometimes he’d tried looking at Gavin’s sleeping face and feeling- a fondness. He thought he had. He thought if he really, officially, became Gavin’s partner, he might feel it even more. But whatever that had been it had been pretty limp and inconsequential compared to this. Goodness, what a rush. He looked at the curve of Richard’s neck, the shell of his ear. He could feel his arms goosebump.

It had been a precarious existence, a childhood and adolescence spent in ever new families, a few years taking any kind of odd job and spending no money and eventually getting some pretty significant loans to be able to attend Vassar (those happiest of years!), then a fairly successful but still touch-and-go career in business development. But he’d stayed frugal, had managed to pay off his loans, had managed to get this condo, had made his way in the world. And now his obscenely wealthy boss and lover had offered him to just take care of him. For once in his life, he could let go and stop worrying. No more scrimping, no more saving, no more late nights and overtime. No more thinking about what would happen if he had a medical situation he couldn’t afford. Someone to put as his emergency contact. Someone to grow old with, maybe. All he had to do in return was keep Gavin happy, which honestly wasn’t all that complicated, and it wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy sex with him, generally. He was attractive, fit, had a nice dick, didn’t make him do anything too weird. And even though he could be crass and blunt and insensitive he generally listened to Jared’s advice and opinions. He could finally lead a privileged life. He could have his very own Cinderella story.

So why was he considering throwing it all away for a broke, inexperienced coder who said stuff like “gulp” and “nom nom” out loud? 

Well. There were the red flags. Gavin’s insistence he get rid of his condo and his job, leaving him no escape routes. His blackout rages which mostly affected the furnishings but that had on one occasion left Jared with a black eye and swollen jaw. The entitlement and the attitude. The fact he appeared to think being in love was just about being able to maintain a hard dick around someone, and Jared wasn’t sure that was the permanent situation Gavin seemed to think it was. They talked, of course, but their conversations were all about work, other than that it was mainly Gavin talking about himself. His workout routine, where he was on the Forbes ranking, his macrobiotic diet, his Time cover. They’d certainly never talked about birds, or space, or quantum theory, or gluten free baking. Jared couldn’t even imagine it.

Richard’s breath became quiet and uneven and he blinked his eyes open and looked around, confused.

“Hey,” Jared said softly.

Richard’s head whipped around and he stared a little. “Hey uh.” He grinned. 

“What?” Jared grinned back.

“I don’t know. You have like, curls in your hair. You’re all…”

“All what?”

“Cute. You’re cute,” Richard said, and leaned over and kissed his mouth. Then he rolled over on top of Jared and Jared giggled, putting skinny arms around him, enjoying the lean weight of him. 

“Oh, you do not taste good right now,” he laughed, and Richard snorted, buried his face in Jared’s neck. For a few moments their bodies rocked into each other on waves of laughter.

“Okay, okay, then I’ll kiss you here.” He started pressing firm kisses into Jared’s neck and Jared sighed. Was there really a way it could stay like this? This sweet? It seemed unlikely. As much as he hated to admit it, Gavin was the safer bet. One of Jared’s hands found their way into Richard’s hair and the other clutched at the warm fabric of his T-shirt.

“Richard, we have to talk.” Richard pulled away and sat up on his haunches, and Jared sat up too. Jared cleared his throat. “Pied Piper.”

“Yeah?”

“You need to pivot. The music search is unfundable and useless.” Richard’s face fell. “But Richard, your compression algorithm could make you a very rich man. It’s sensational. It’s what Gavin wants from you. He wants to offer you 50k and a promotion for it.”

Richard raised his eyebrows. “Well, that sounds pretty-”

“It’s nothing. Believe me. With your algorithm, you can build your own thing. Or things. It just depends on the scope of your ambition. You could brand the tech and lease it to streaming services. With the right funding, you could make server parks so cost-efficient you could rival AWS.”

“AWS?!”

“Absolutely. You could even target it towards the quantum computing industry and AI, if you want forefront stuff. Listen, Richard, the era of the personal computer is over, now it’s all about fitting stuff onto phones. Compression is one of the hottest tickets in Silicon Valley. You might be sitting on a gold mine, or at the very least an opportunity to make your own way.”

Richard’s look of shock gave way into one of beaming joy. He stumbled forward and hugged Jared, pulled him to him. “Our way, Jared. Come on. I can’t do this without you. Partners 50/50, what do you say?”

“Oh, Richard, it’s a tempting offer, but-”

“Say yes. Say yes. Say yes, yes, yes.”

“Richard-”

“Hey, Jared, how do you say yes in Vietnamese?”

“Um, depends on context and dialect, but you could say _vâng-_ ”

“What’s that I hear? Vang? Is that a yes? You just said yes. Oral agreement, you can’t back out.”

Jared pulled out of the hug, held a grinning Richard away with both hands on his shoulders. “Richard, be serious.”

“Okay, okay uh, but like, fuck, promise me you’ll think about it? Seriously?”

Jared took a deep breath. “Okay, Richard. I will.”

Jared drove them both to work and went to his office. He checked his calendar and saw Gavin had requested a meeting between 9:15-9:30. He rejected it. It was kind of a spontaneous act and his heart suddenly hammered, but then he grinned. The walls hadn’t collapsed. And he was already fired. If he did move in with Gavin he could suck his dick comfortably in his big bed in the morning, no more office trysts. Ever. He pulled up the Sparrowcam on his desktop and smiled at the hatchlings - oh they were getting so big! Oh goodness! - and opened his email in a separate window, looked at the draft.

_To: gavin@hooli.com  
Subject: Pied Piper and Richard Hendricks report_

_Dear Gavin,_

_Richard Hendricks appears competent, enthusiastic and flexible. He can be a little inarticulate when he’s excited or unsure. He asks intelligent questions and is friendly. He is likeable and with some more experience and relevant training he could be a potential candidate for a senior dev position or a team leader role._

_According to Hendricks, the development of Pied Piper has exclusively taken place on his own equipment in his spare time, but he has admitted to some minor testing of the application on Hooli equipment during work breaks over a three day period when his laptop was being repaired. He is focussed on the music search functionality of Pied Piper and treats his compression algorithm, which I assess as having real revenue potential, as an afterthought. My research indicates nobody else has seen the potential in the Pied Piper application, as the only mentions of it I can find online are Hendricks’ own Reddit posts and tweets, none of which has driven much engagement._

_My recommendation is still to offer him a lump sum of $200 000 and a promotion, as well as a leading role in any development project incorporating his tech._

_Kind regards, Jared_

Jared deleted everything except the recommendation line, and hit Send.

*

Richard stood in front of the Hooli campus kitchen wall. His go-to was energy drinks, or coffee. But he kind of felt like something else. Maybe tea. Yeah, tea was the thing right now. He smiled. His chest kept getting this confetti burst feeling, like in a good way, like all these awesome fucking things were about to happen to him. It was… really new, but it was nice. How could he have had the crazy luck to meet someone like Jared Dunn? It’s like the universe reached out and fixed both his love life and his professional life in one fell swoop.

“Hey, Richard!”

Richard turned and smiled to see Big Head walk up behind him as he was steeping his tea. “Oh, hey, man!”

“You didn’t come home last night and you’re wearing what you left in, so uh, guessing you had a good night?”

Richard flushed a little, grinned from ear to ear. “Yeah.”

“Good for you!”

Big Head was the only person in the house he’d told about Jared, and for good reason. Even if he’d had it in him to make fun of him, he wouldn’t have bothered. It was the small things, really. Like this one time when Richard was going through a depressive episode at Stanford, Big Head had randomly bought him a Twix and tossed it on his bed, and the fact that Big Head had absorbed both the knowledge that that was his favourite chocolate and what he tended to buy to make himself feel better had moved him so fundamentally he’d kicked his own ass out of bed to go play a GoldenEye emulator with him. He was… a really good dude to have around.

Richard looked down a little shyly, blew his tea. “I uh,” he said. “like, uh. He’s- he’s so fucking smart, and he’s so fucking cute, and like- like I feel like this is a new beginning, I feel like this is what I’ve been waiting for in a way? And he’s gonna - I’m pretty sure he’s gonna help me out with Pied Piper, and he had all these ideas which are super exciting.”

Big Head squinted. “Wait, I’m confused. Did you score or did you like, make a business plan?”

Richard laughed, and was about to answer, when a hand landed on his shoulder and he turned to see a Hooli security guard. “Richard Hendricks?”

“Uh… yeah?”

“Come with me, please.”

Richard and Big Head exchanged confused looks and Richard trailed after the guard. 

* * *

**viii. gavin**

Jared was being deliberately unproductive. He may have been fired, but he had a one month notification period and planned to spend it doing very little. He might even go up on the rooftop with the rejects and see if they’d let him hang out with them. His screen had a window with the Sparrowcam up, Spotify was playing his favourite Cass Elliot songs [[x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ7dTMPwUi8)], and he was dictating ideas for Pied Piper into his phone. What if he really did go for it? What if he really did start working for- no, not for, _with_ Richard. It had been two months since Gavin asked him to move in with him and he’d dragged his heels all this time. That was probably a pretty good sign he didn’t really want to go through with it, for as much as he’d tried to talk himself into it. But oh, Pied Piper, that was a potential adventure which was really, really tempting. It could all blow up in his face, of course, but _what if it didn’t_. What if, he became successful on his own terms, alongside somebody he… gosh, somebody it felt an awful lot like he was in love with. Somebody who looked like him like he was special, not like he was property. Jared sighed, grinned, started dictating an idea for a possible suite of compression products scaleable to different clients. Then there was a hard knock on his door. Jared put the phone away, killed the music, ctrl-w’d the Sparrowcam, as Gavin Belson strode inside.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“What’s wrong, Gavin?”

“I’ve sent you ten fucking e-mails.”

Jared shrugged. “Didn’t see them.”

Gavin’s eyes turned black for a moment, and Jared could tell he was composing himself. “Thank you for the report on Richard Hendricks. It was most helpful.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I particularly liked the bit where you found out he’d tested the application on Hooli equipment.”

Jared blinked. “Um. What? I didn’t-”

Gavin got a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, read aloud. “Dear Gavin. Richard Hendricks appears competent, enthusiastic-”

Jared snatched the paper from him. It was his unedited draft. “I didn’t send this.” His mouth fell open. “You accessed my email?”

“You use Hoolimail, Jared. It’s MY email. And furthermore, Hoover saw Richard Hendricks exit your car this morning.”

Jared bit his lip. “Yes, we carpooled.”

Gavin got another piece of paper out. Gavin and his props. Jared knew what it was before he unfolded it and showed it to him. A printed out snapshot of the little moment when Richard had turned and kissed him before running off to clock in on time. Darn that curtain-twitcher Hoover. He cleared his throat. “Um.”

“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry, Gavin.”

“You think I’m stupid, Jared? You think I’m blind? You two meet up under that fucking tree every day, I can see you from my office.”

Jared felt his face heat up. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I’m going to drop Hooli legal on your little boyfriend’s head, is what I’m going to do. Unbelievable. You almost have to admire the balls on this guy. I’m going to fucking fire him, and I’m going to take his IP too. If he doesn’t like it, he can see me in court, and I’ll bring every fucking lawyer I have if necessary, and if by some miracle he wins I’ll appeal until one of us runs out of money.”

“Gavin, please-”

“However,” Gavin said, stopping Jared with a movement of his hand. “I’m prepared to forgive you.” He put a hand on his chest. “Commitment is a difficult thing, I know that. You have something, it’s good, it’s stable, then this guy comes along with his, his-” Gavin frowned. “what the fuck is it he has, exactly?”

“Uh-”

Gavin waved his hand. “Doesn’t matter.” He walked forward, stood in front of Jared, put both hands on his waist, and took a deep breath before looking up at him. “If you’re a good boy, and you come home with me tonight, we can put all of this behind us. Heck, I’ll even give you your job back since you got so pissy about that, I like having you around during the day.” Gavin tightened his grip. “This is a one time offer, by the way.”

Outside there were sounds of commotion, somebody yelling for somebody else to stop, and then Jared’s office door flung open. On the other side was Richard, who gawked at him and Gavin, mouth open, before being tackled by a security guard. Jared gasped. “Richard!”

“Get him the fuck out of here,” Gavin said coolly.

“Right away, mister Belson, sir,” another guard said, discreetly closing the office door while Richard was being roughly pulled off the ground. Jared blinked.

“Well? Jared? What’s it going to be?”

Jared leaned forward then, into a hug, and Gavin’s arms came up around him. Jared’s fingers curled at the nape of Gavin’s neck, and he thought about the times he’d spent in fancy hotel rooms, the private jet, Gavin’s gorgeous mansion. 

“Oh, Gavin.”

Jared felt Gavin’s shoulders untense a little.

“I’m grateful for the opportunities you’ve given me. And I really, really hope you find someone to share your life with some day. But it’s not going to be me. I’m so sorry.”

Jared pulled away to see Gavin stare incredulously at him, and then he twisted out of the embrace and strode out of his office, before running down the hallway and out on campus, past the sparrow nest tree, towards the exit.

“Richard! Richard!” 

Richard was striding quickly away from Hooli campus, but Jared caught up with him. 

“Gosh, Richard, please stop.”

Richard turned on his heels, eyebrows knit together. Jared stepped back. 

“What, the fuck, was that?”

Jared wrung his hands. “Can we sit down? And talk?”

“I was just fucking fired, Jared!” Richard yelled. “And like - what was - like he had his hands on you and uh-”

“Let’s go get coffee? I’ll tell you everything, I promise.”

“No. No thank you,” Richard said, turned on his heel and started jabbing into his phone.

“Richard, please.”

Richard made a surprised noise as a car rolled to a halt in front of them and turned the window down. 

“One of you Richard Hendricks? I’m your Lyft.”

“Yes, me, thank, you,” Richard said and started to get in. Jared trailed behind, crouched down as he took a seat. 

“You said you’d fight,” he said, and Richard stared for a moment before slamming the car door shut.

*

Richard was lying down on his stomach on his bunk bed, one arm swinging over the edge, hood up. Well, it was nice to have tried to be happy and excited to be alive for a moment, but reality had to come crashing down sooner or later, and this being Richard Hendricks’ life specifically, of course it had to be sooner. God, he was going to have to go look for another job. The thing he had going for him had been his algorithm but the Hooli lawyer in the office he’d been led to earlier that day had informed him as he’d tested the app on Hooli equipment, according to his contract that was Hooli IP, so he didn’t have that anymore. It really would have been the perfect thing to go crying to Jared about and be all wrapped up in those stupid long arms and told it was going to be okay if it hadn’t been for the fact it couldn’t have been anyone except Jared who had told them that (why couldn’t he just have shut the fuck up! Why did his simpleton Midwestern morals always end up fucking him over like this! Wasn’t honesty supposed to be a good fucking thing?), which is something he could probably have come to terms with maybe, if it hadn’t been for the fact when he’d made a run for Jared’s office (those stupid guards wouldn’t even let him phone Jared? Like what the fuck?) and burst in he’d found _Gavin fucking Belson,_ in real life, looking like every photo Richard had ever seen on him in Wired or on the company website, _with his fucking arms around Jared._

Life. Sucked.

Richard suddenly wished none of this had happened. He’d begged the universe for change and some fucking cursed monkey paw had listened. He’d much rather have struggled through his low level depression and hollow feeling of inertia than this, being made to think life could turn around and be great and then being dropped on his fucking head. Out of an airplane. Into a sewer.

Richard suddenly woke up from the sound of someone knocking on his door. He sighed and blinked and shifted. “Uh, what is it.”

“Hey man, it’s me,” Big Head’s voice came through the door. “can I come in?”

Richard considered. “Um, okay,” he said.

Big Head walked in, turned on the lights (Richard winced) and closed the door behind him. “What happened?”

“Come up.”

Richard sat up crosslegged on one end of his bunk, and Big Head climbed up and sat on the other, and Richard told him. When he’d finished he kept blinking to keep from fucking crying. Big Head was silent for a while, looked like he was thinking. You could usually tell.

“Oh, man,” he said, eventually. “like… I don’t know, the Pied Piper thing sounds super unfair?”

“It’s totally fucking unfair!”

“Like, if you could get a lawyer, maybe you could get it back?”

“I can’t. I don’t have any fucking money. They have all the money in the world. Not to mention Gavin Belson, Gavin _Belson_ , personally hates my fucking guts, because apparently, I’ve been dating his _boyfriend_.”

“Gavin Belson is gay? Really?”

“Uhh yeah, remember when code/rag outed him and how he’s been on the warpath against them ever since?”

Big Head frowned. “No?”

“Well, um.”

“You said Jared came after you, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe it was all a big misunderstanding?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You were so excited about this guy though.”

Richard dragged an open palm over his right eye. “Yeah. Huu.”

“Don’t you deserve to know for sure?”

* * *

**ix. the book of ruth**

Richard slipped into Jared’s building after an older guy locked himself in and walked up the stairs. He sighed. He’d thought about calling beforehand but better just do this face to face. Big Head had been right. And Jared had been kind of right too. He’d made this big fucking, mister Darcy or whatever romantic hero (he hadn’t actually read any of those books), type speech, and at the first sign of shittiness he’d fucked off in a Lyft. He’d had some daydreams about a future with Jared and the thing he’d really, really wanted, at an almost pathetic level, was just like… grown up normalcy. He fucking liked Jared’s whole normcore thing. He liked that he had a nice job with a lot of responsibilities and he liked that he had a neat apartment and he liked that he wasn’t impulsive or stuttery. Richard was 27, which felt like a nice age to maybe just grow the hell up a bit. But if he wanted to be an adult with adult things and adult relationships, maybe he needed to do the difficult bullshit adult things too, like following up and having hard conversations and… yeah. Fighting. He took a deep breath, and knocked. 

He knocked again.

“Um, Jared,” he said. “it’s uh, it’s Richard, can I come in, please?”

He frowned. Was Jared actually in there, was he just ignoring him? 

“We need to talk? This uh, this is me, fighting. Please, fuck.”

“Richard?”

Richard nearly jumped a foot in the air. Jared was standing there in the hallway, carrying a Whole Foods bag. 

“Oh uh, hi. Uh.”

Jared bit his lip. “Would you like to come in?”

“Yeah uh, yeah I would, thanks.”

Richard followed Jared inside his condo, and Jared walked over to the little kitchen unit with his groceries, putting everything away. The silence was unusual. Richard realized that almost from the moment they’d met, they’d talked. He cleared his throat to put a splinter in that silence, which felt heavy.

“I trusted you,” he said. “was that stupid?”

“This might sound a little unbelievable,” Jared said, reaching to put away a packet of beluga lentils. “but I didn’t actually tell Gavin about the Pied Piper tests. He read my drafted email. I had decided against sending it.”

“Jesus, that’s some Elizabeth Holmes shit.”

“It was a breach of confidence I hadn’t planned for, certainly.”

“Are you and Gavin-” he heard his voice go high, and cleared his throat again. “are you and Gavin together?”

Jared finally turned to look at him. “We’ve been in a sexual relationship for about two years,” he said. “I ended it today.”

“Okay. _Wow_.” 

Jared scratched his arm hard enough to leave red tracks. “I- I never had feelings for Gavin and I didn’t think he had any for me, it was just- a mutually beneficial arrangement really-”

“Huh”

“Until uh- a couple of months ago he asked me to move in with him and sort of, I don’t know, become his partner for real- but- I don’t know, I kept putting it off, he wanted me to sell my apartment and I kept stalling and coming up with excuses- and I met you and- and I realized- gosh, Richard, I grew up with nothing, I know the value of a dollar, I chose my major and my workplace because I wanted to be financially secure, nobody goes into biz dev because it’s their passion, I just, I just wanted that safety. But I met you and it just- didn’t seem so important anymore.” He blinked and a tear dropped down his cheek. “You ever read the Bible, Richard?”

“Uh, what? Like… uh, no, not since, um, Sunday school.”

“I’ve read it a lot, I’m not really a person of faith but a lot of times when I was growing up it was the only book in the house. I always loved the Book of Ruth.”

“I-” Richard scrunched his face up, thinking. “I can’t say I remember that one.”

“Well, it’s about this woman, Naomi, her husband and sons all die and she decides to go back to Israel, and tells her daughters in law to return to their families. One of them does, but the other, that’s Ruth, she refuses. Ruth tells Naomi, ‘intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee. For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge, thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’ I always loved that. It’s a conversion story, really, about how Ruth accepts the Israelite God through her duty to her mother in law, but I always liked the idea that she loved this woman so much she left everything she knew behind, her family, her country, her religion, for a whole new life. There's something kind of exciting? About that? And very moving.”

Richard had been standing with his arms crossed tightly over his chest and a frown, but his expression softened and his arms uncrossed, falling down by his side. “Like um. What are you saying?”

Jared took a deep, shuddery breath. “Well, I always liked that story, but after I met you, I understand why she did what she did. I don’t think it was a hard choice at all. I know it’s only been a few weeks but- oh, Richard, I think I love you.” He looked down. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I don’t expect-”

Richard took two long strides forward, got up on the balls of his feet, scrunched his fists in Jared’s shirt and kissed his mouth, hard and crooked. Jared folded down and into it and whimpered a little against Richard’s mouth. When they pulled apart he leaned in for a hug, and Richard’s arms came up around him. 

“I think I too. The thing,” Richard said weakly, and immediately realized that was the worst love confession anybody had probably made in at least a few years of human history, but Jared laughed a surprised laugh and pulled him in even tighter. Richard turned his face a little to press a kiss into Jared’s neck. He suddenly felt exhausted and pulled away to go sit down on Jared’s sofa, fumbling to find Jared’s hand and pull him with him. They sat down next to each other and Jared looked at him with wet, starry eyes. 

“You forgive me?” he asked.

Richard shrugged. “There’s not really anything to forgive. You were just doing your job and whatever thing you had going on with Gavin is uh, like, your business I guess. I’m not entitled to uh…”

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Jared said, smiling. “are we okay?”

“Yeah I. Yeah, I mean, we’re both boned, but uh, we’re okay, I think, yeah.”

Jared reached out and brushed his fingertips along Richard’s jaw, and Richard stared back, smiling a little awkwardly, then his fingers tilted Richard's face up firmly and Richard let them, and he closed his eyes as Jared leaned down for a kiss, which was firm and sweet at first and then opened on a breath and turned deeper. 

*

“Are you sure this will be alright, Richard?”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Richard said, threading his fingers in with Jared’s. He had a backpack and Jared had a suitcase trailing behind him, all full of Jared’s things. They walked up to Erlich’s house together and Richard opened the door. 

“Ah, Richard,” Erlich boomed from the kitchen, before striding over to them, hair pulled away from his face in barrettes, one of his ubiquitous kimonos flowing behind him. “I’ve been meaning to-” his eyes fell to Richard and Jared’s intertwined hands. “what the actual fuck?”

“Uh, guys, meet uh, my boyfriend, Jared,” Richard said. 

Office chairs and heads turned in their direction and Richard’s smile felt stiff. 

“Hey, Jared,” Big Head greeted, breaking the silence. Gilfoyle’s hand fell forward, palm open, and Dinesh muttered something and got ten dollars out of his pocket, handing it over, scowling at Richard. 

“I hope, it’ll be okay, if Jared stays here for a while. He um, put his condo on AirBnB and needs a place to stay.”

“Hadn’t counted on it being so popular,” Jared said, smiling awkwardly. “I got a request for a two month lease ten minutes after putting it up.”

Erlich squinted his eyes at him. “Do you code?”

“Um, no, but I have the highest respect for-”

“Then you can fuck off. This is an incubator, not a homeless shelter.”

“Jesus, Erlich, he’ll be staying in my room. It’s temporary.”

“Richard! I am the de facto leader of this house, and it is my responsibility to keep its fragile ecosystem balanced. Do you know what will happen, are you aware of the kind of mutiny that would ensue, if I let some straggler stay rent free?”

“We all stay rent free!” Richard said.

“No, that is not true, you have all given me shares of your future technologies-”

“I’d be happy to contribute towards the costs of living,” Jared said. “and towards the household chores.”

“I don’t mind,” Big Head said.

“I don’t mind either,” Gilfoyle said. “if ever a man needed to get laid, it’s Richard.”

“Yeah I don’t care,” Dinesh said. “especially if he’s going to do chores. That means clean, right? The floor is getting crunchy again.”

“Oh, I see,” Erlich said. “the mutiny did not take the turn I had anticipated. Fine. A week. Max.”

“Cool, thanks,” Richard said.”

“Oh, I’m very grateful-” Jared began. Erlich waved his hand. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t get comfortable.” He squinted his eyes again. “I’m watching you.”

*

Jared gripped the poles of the ladder and took an unsure step up. “Are you sure this is going to work, Richard?”

“Yeah, come on, there’s lots of room.”

Jared maneuvered six feet and four inches into Richard’s bunk bed, laid down on his side and grinned at Richard, who was lying pressed up against the wall. “Well, I give us a week.”

“Oh, come on! There’s space!”

“I should have put the AirBnB thing off.”

“Well, we need income uh. I could, I could call my parents I guess.” He shifted a little closer, rested a hand on the dip in Jared’s waist. “Going to start applying for jobs tomorrow. At least I can use you as a reference, haha.”

Jared sighed. “Hopefully Gavin hasn’t started one of his campaigns. He’s very good at holding grudges. It could be we’re both persona non grata in the entire tech sector by tomorrow.”

“Are you still gonna go in?”

Jared shrugged. “Yeah, for another month, May first is my official final day. I don’t think Gavin would risk instructing legal to challenge that considering, er, our past. I’m thinking… if we can’t find new jobs, we just save up as much money as possible, then we maybe go somewhere cheaper than Palo Alto?”

Richard nodded. “We could go to my parents’ place. Hey, we could go to my grandfather’s farm, it’s been empty for a year and a half, after he passed. Nobody wants to buy it, it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere.”

“The world is our oyster,” Jared grinned, and Richard grinned too, and drew in closer for a kiss. Jared’s hand very lightly and very teasingly drew patterns on his back, over his T-shirt at first and then under, and Richard just gasped and nodded when the hand reached his hip so it continued its journey into his boxers, and minutes later Richard came in Jared’s hand, face pressed hard into his shoulder.

* * *

Richard and Big Head were battling it out playing Super Mario Smash Bros when Jared came home from work, sat down on the couch next to them. Richard paused the game, leaned in for a brief kiss. “Hey.”

“Hey Richard! Hey Nelson.”

“Hey man.”

“Well, I have news from the Hooli grapevine,” Jared said. “Gavin has already started trying to develop on your algorithm, but it turns out it doesn’t scale.”

Richard frowned. “What? What the fuck?”

“It stalls completely at a pretty low limit, about a 100 megs.” Jared shrugged. “I’m sorry, Richard. That really limits its applicability and shrinks its revenue potential to something not really worth pursuing. But on the plus side, Gavin won’t get richer off it?”

“Like- uh- the stuff that was on Github is an old repository, uh, it really should-”

“It doesn’t matter, Richard,” Jared smiled. “but the project is dead at Hooli. Just wanted you to know. Did you apply for any more jobs today?”

“Uh, yeah, uh, sure. Um. Like, a hundred megabytes? You sure about that? Maybe they said gigabytes?”

Jared laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry, Richard! Hey, are you hungry? I’m going to make some pho-”

“No I uh I have to check a thing uh”

“Hey what about the game?” Big Head called after Richard as he disappeared into his room. He looked up at Jared. “Do you wanna play?”

“Oh, Nelson, I can’t figure those things out, I’m sorry. But I’ll make you some pho if you want.”

“Yay,” Big Head said, gratefully.

“Extra green chillis, buddy?”

“Yes please!” Big Head said, ended the tournament and started story mode.

*

Jared walked into Richard’s room. Richard’s fingers were hammering across the keyboard, he was wearing his big headphones, had a frown on his face. He walked over and put a hand on Richard’s shoulder and he jumped a little, then tore off his headphones. “My algorithm is a piece of fucking shit,” he said in an agitated voice. “I literally built shit. I should have just had some prunes and coffee instead, would have saved me some trouble.”

“Oh, Richard, no, you built it to purpose, not to scale. You specifically wrote it for music files, since when are any of those over a hundred megs?”

“All the time, if you’re Neil Young,” Richard said petulantly. “this is _shit_.”

“Richard, I’m going to insist you come to bed now.”

Richard sighed and his expression softened, and he nodded. They quickly stripped down to T-shirts and boxers and Jared climbed up first, moved up to the head of the bed and sat cross legged. Richard smiled, following, on hands and knees, leaned in to kiss him. Jared let his hands brush from Richard’s face to his shoulders and down his arms. “Your bed is so ridiculous,” he said.

“Oh come on, this is fine, this is good.”

“It’s like trying to be sexy inside a phone booth.”

“What the fuck is a phone booth?”

“Ha, ha.”

“I was born in 92, I don’t remember these things. Did they run on steam?”

“Shut up,” Jared laughed, and reached out to pull at the hem of Richard’s T-shirt, and all the way over his head. Richard shook his head, ran a hand through his curls. “gosh, you’re adorable.”

Jared reached behind himself and pulled his T-shirt off, let it drop on the floor, smiled at Richard.

“Gulp,” Richard said.

Jared laughed. “What?”

“What? I didn’t say anything.” He crawled forward again to kiss Jared and Jared’s arms came up around him, pulled him closer.

A little while later Jared was on his back supported by one of Richard’s pillows, knees drawn up and back, face beaded with sweat and mouth open, Richard’s hands planted on either side of him as he thrust inside. 

“Uh Jared,” he sobbed. “you’re uh so perfect so uhhh”

The bunk bed creaked dangerously. Jared was a little nervous they were going to disjoint the whole thing eventually, crash down to the floor.

Richard groaned as he came, thrust in deep, breathed hard for a few moments before pulling out, discarding his condom, getting a wet wipe from the stash in the space between his mattress and his frame (he’d got rid of the melatonin gummies - Jared might still be sceptical about the bunk but they both slept deeply and peacefully in each others arms) and cleaning them up a bit, eyes heavy on Jared’s body before flicking up to smile at him. Jared smiled back fondly. Gavin might have been a far more skilled lover but he’d take these moments of genuine tenderness over orgasms with a hollow aftertaste any day. And as soon as they were in a real bed without roommates on either side he’d get a little bit more verbal about what he liked. Richard collapsed dramatically over his chest and Jared laughed, let his arms come up around him. He let his legs scissor over Richard’s and for quiet moments they just breathed together. Then Richard raised his face up, nodded. “Sit up.”

“Okay,” Jared said, and Richard drew back and Jared sat up, put the pillow behind his back towards the wall. Richard crouched down and forwards inbetween his long legs, gave Jared’s half-hard dick a few strokes and kissed the head.

“Oh, Richard, are you sure?” Jared asked, concerned. “Just use your hand, baby, it’s fine, here-”

“No, I, no, it’s gonna be okay. I’ll go slower this time. Um.” He looked up at him with big blue eyes and a nervous smile and Jared’s heart was so full. He ran his fingers through Richard’s hair as he tentatively licked the shaft and then brought his lips over the head, and down a little, and up, and Jared’s head fell back, one hand still petting at Richard’s hair, his breath filling his chest. He flicked his gaze down to see Richard, mouth full, a tight and stubborn determination playing across his features. He pulled off, panting, still stroking with his hand.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“You’re doing so well, baby. You’re so good.”

Richard looked up at him with a grateful smile and guided Jared’s dick back into his mouth, going deeper this time, then he gagged and retched and pulled off with a frustrated noise. “Fuck!”

“Richard, it’s okay-”

“My stupid fucking gag reflex-”

“Richard, you don’t have to take all of it, don’t be ridiculous, what you were doing was great.”

Richard winced. “But- fuck, Jared, I just want to make you feel as good as you make me feel. If I could just-”

Jared reached to locate the lube, then grabbed Richards hand and put some in it, then put his own palm to his and gently rubbed to spread it. He guided Richard’s slick hand to his dick, his hand over Richard’s. “Tighter grip, honey.” Richard did as asked, staring. “That’s so good. Okay?”

“But-”

“Use your hand up until about-” he stilled their movements. “here. And use your mouth on the rest. Don’t try for more. Okay? Let’s do that.”

Richard nodded, leaned back down, got a good rythm going, the room grew quiet but for the wet sounds of Richard’s hand and mouth working.

“Oh goodness,” Jared said, before gasping. “oh, _Richard_. I’m uh, I’m-”

Richard pulled off, stroked harder, faster. “You uh you close? Yeah? Uh, fuck, you look so hot, I, uh-”

Jared gasped and came, streaked Richard’s chest and hand. Richard grinned. “That good? Uh? Jared? Huh?”

“Goodness, Richard, do you really have to ask. Yes. That was… pretty fucking fantastic.”

Richard beamed and raised his dripping hand for a high five. Jared winced. “Seriously? Gross.”

“Okay, okay,” Richard said, accepted the packet of wet wipes and started cleaning himself off a little while Jared watched him, fond and boneless. “like, that was pretty like uh good, like, my problem is if it’s like too much I just, but when I can just kind of go to the middle and out I- I-” Richard frowned. “I-”

“Richard?”

“Middle out. Middle- jesus christ! I’m an idiot! I’m a total fucking idiot!”

Richard swung his legs over the side of the bed and jumped down, pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, and flung his macbook open, muttering to himself. “God!”

“Richard? What on earth are you doing?” Jared asked, leaning up on an elbow to look at him.

“Just gonna uh. You go to sleep,” Richard said, and put his big headphones over his head. It took a while before Jared managed to fall asleep, but when he did Richard’s fingers were still tapping rapidly across his keyboard.

* * *

**x. three and a half months after the day things changed**

The walls in Jared’s condo had changed from the old, slightly dour Blueberry Muffin blue to a peaceful and warmer Breakfast Room green. They’d only finished the job last week and a lot of Richard’s things were still in bags and boxes, which frustrated Jared a little but he had to concede they were both too busy to do much about it, but one of these days he’d set aside some time to fully organise. Get Richard moved in properly. He’d found the time to paint, after all. 

Jared was pacing, wringing his hands. Richard walked up to him, placed a calming hand on his forearm. “You ready?”

“No, I, how does my hair look? Does it look stupid?”

“Uh? No, it looks like… neat. Like always. Uh, good, you look good, babe.”

“Oh, I don’t feel good. Let’s do this some other day.”

“Jared, it’s just a Skype call with my parents. You’re freaking out more than I did when I, like, came out to them.” He frowned. “I thought you wanted to talk to them.”

“I do, I-” he took a deep breath. “I’m scared they won’t like me.”

Richard smiled. “Why wouldn’t they like you? What’s not to like? Come on. I love you, they’ll love you too. I’ll do all the talking if you like, just like, sit there and look handsome.”

“Oh, oh goodness-”

“Come on, let’s go.” He sat down on the black leather sofa and patted the space next to him. Jared swallowed and sat down too, close. Richard logged into skype and moments later it called from PAUL AND JUDY HENDRICKS and Richard went “hu, on time,” and accepted the call. Jared folded his hands together very tightly. 

“Hey mom, hey dad.”

_“Hello!”_

“Um, hello, mister and mrs Hendricks,” Jared said. Richard’s dad was skinny and rangy like Richard, his mom had the same auburn curls. He swallowed. 

_“Well, hello, Jared. We’ve heard so much about you.”_

“Oh I- goodness, I-”

“He’s nervous,” Richard covered, stroked his back quickly. 

“I am,” Jared admitted. 

_“Oh son, don’t be. Welcome to the family. Are y’all settled into the apartment?”_

Jared’s hand covered his heart, and he stared starry-eyed at the laptop. Richard glanced over at him. “Uh, yeah, we’re uh, like I still need to unpack all my stuff but like, we painted the walls green and everything, but it’s been really crazy, super busy, since we got funded. Um.”

“Richard got interviewed by a reporter from Wired yesterday!” Jared chirped.

_“Is that a newspaper?”_

“It’s a technology magazine, it’s a very big deal! There was a photographer, too!”

_“Do they sell that here, honey?”_

__

__

_“I wouldn’t know, I’ll ask for it.”_

“It’s um, I’ll uh I’ll just forward you the link when it goes online, don’t worry,” Richard said. 

_“I’m still not sure I understand what it is that company of yours does.”_

”It’s a file compression product, I already told you.”

“It makes large files smaller, so we targeted smaller streaming services, who have a lot of video files. When people watch TV in their homes through the internet it goes faster for the viewer at home and it’s cheaper for the service when the videos are small,” Jared said.

_“Like Netflix?”_

“Exactly! Except Netflix develop all their own compression technology. But we still have some really good clients, one that does horror movies and content and another one that does classic movies. So we’re building a portfolio, it’s pretty exciting!”

_“We can tell why you need this guy, Richie, he makes sense.”_

“Oh-” Jared said, feeling guilty about having stepped on Richard’s explanations in front of his parents, but Richard grabbed his hand.

“Yeah, I know.”

_“Theresa Bighetti told me that Hooli guy stole all your ideas, though? What happened with that?”_

“Um well what happened was that he claimed to be entitled to an older compression algorithm I wrote while I was working for them, but uh, the one we have now is a new one I wrote working on uh, completely different principles.”

_“It has that same silly name though.”_

Richard frowned. “It’s not silly. It’s a classic fairy tale, total name recognition uh?”

“Richard likes the name, and I was leaving my position at Hooli anyway, so I offered to leave on the spot and forfeit the rest of my salary if they reverted the name rights back to Richard.” Jared smiled a little awkwardly. It hadn’t been a very pleasant conversation, and he’d realized he must have really hurt Gavin’s feelings terribly. Or he just wasn’t used to rejection at all. Difficult to tell with that man.

“We both like the name,” Richard said, looking at him.

“Yes, um, it has its charms!” Jared said.

Richard’s dad barked a laugh through the laptop. _“You boys will be fine._ ”

_“When are you coming to Tulsa so we can meet you all in person?”_

“Mom, we’re super busy, like, I’m a CEO now, and uh, like, I have employees. My friends Dinesh and Gilfoyle.”

_“What about Nelson? You didn’t give Nelson a job? I know you weren’t raised in a barn!”_

“Uh, Big Head actually got a job offer from Hooli, so he’s over there right now, doing really well. Making um, a lot of money. But the point is, uh, we’re too busy for a holiday right now.”

_“But you’ll come for Christmas? Both of you?”_

“We’ll have to talk-”

“Yes,” Jared cut in. “oh, we’d love to come for Christmas!”

Richard nodded. “Yeah uh, okay, we’re coming for Christmas.”

A little later they wrapped up the conversation and Richard reached out to close the laptop. “There, that wasn’t so bad was it?”

Jared wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in for a hug and Richard laughed, and Jared buried his face in Richard’s neck, held him tight, breathing hotly. 

“Come on, Jared, what is it? That went fine. They liked you.”

“Oh I- oh, I liked them too. It’s all a little overwhelming.”

Richard maneuvered them a little so Jared was sitting bowed into Richard, Richard’s arm over his shoulder, Jared’s hand resting on Richard’s hip. Some times Richard could get involuntary flashbacks to his aunt’s 80 lb Flat Coat Retriever who was convinced it was a lapdog, not that he’d ever tell Jared that. “Hey, whatever happened to the Hooli sparrow family?”

“Oh, they’re long gone, Richard. The chicks got bigger and bigger and then one day I checked, the nest was empty and they never came back. It’s the way of the world.”

“Yeah, I guess. Here’s to new beginnings, huh?”

“To new beginnings,” Jared smiled, and he leaned in a little and kissed Richard, and Richard kissed back, and Jared just couldn’t wait to get started on all the life that lay ahead of them.

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> crispyphantombread made [gorgeous artwork](https://crispyphantombread.tumblr.com/post/613174519633477632/fan-art-of-iamtheremin-s-story-book-of-ruth) of Jared and Richard going birdwatching! Thank you!!
> 
> Richard of course knows all his space facts but I got them from Paul Murdin's excellent book The Secret Lives of Planets.
> 
> The irl model for the bakery was Ms Cupcake in Brixton, London, which very sadly closed this year after nearly 10 years of vegan (and other allergy-friendly) decadence. Here's a [photo](https://flic.kr/p/9v3wjD).
> 
> The Vietnamese phrase Jared tells Richard is a proverb that roughly translates to "you can't reason with a hungry belly".
> 
> When I first began plotting this the idea was to write something a lot darker and weirder than I usually do, which seemed safe now there's only nine of us left in the fandom, but then the world went full pandemic horror and it turned into my standard floof as real life had quite enough angst. Maybe some other year.


End file.
